Web-based services for real estate: model and implementation

E-commerce's impact on real estate is just as significant and multifaceted as in other areas. Its momentum springs from two factors: an increasing population of online customers and increased involvement and investment from the real estate industry. The online real estate business' growing demand for application development has created a new market for application service providers (ASPs) who developed standardized Internet application systems and information services supporting a specific set of business processes. E-commerce success stories have taught companies that every successful e-business must have a feasible business plan that complies with a model. CommRex (Commercial Real Estate Exchange, http://www.commrex.com), a Web-based real estate information system, offers a case study in one such service. CommRex's performance in terms of four characteristics - scalability, portability, operation ability, and availability - is satisfactory, owing to its multiorganization data allocation scheme. During this evolutionary process, the multilevel service model and multiorganization data management structure have been proven an effective choice for such an evolutionary process.